Sorry for the twists and turns of my odyssey in that strange country, Cyberland. I have decided to continue sending out this newsletter via email, except for those who choose to receive it from my blogspot http://naturenewssf.blogspot.com/. A reader pointed out that I would lose the bulk of readers, who read the newsletters only sporadically, and who may have missed my messages about requesting to stay on email list. Unfortunately, in my confused vacillation I have already lost the addresses of a few readers.
You will have the option of receiving newsletter from blogspot by entering address in the "Follow by email" box in upper right corner, rather than by email.
###############################################
1. Supporters of Golden Gate Park - two dates, June 26 and July 10
2. San Bruno Mountain North American Butterfly Assn count Sunday 26 June
3. Save the date: July 7 for Aldo Leopold program
4. LTE, Sierra - and my submitted response on plants and animals moving around the world
5. Stats on bats - worrisome
6. Review community's vision for Cesar Chavez St/update on SFMTA bicycle project
7. Pedro Pt Headland habitat restoration day June 26
8. Family Bike Day at Ft Mason Center
9. "Isles of the Sea of Cortez" at Ted Kipping's potluck June 28
10. Troubles, sorrows? Invite them in; they're here to clean house
11. Al-Jazeera: Fukushima - it's much worse than you think
12. SciAm website posts - available to non-subscribers?
13. Drop-in volunteer resource management days in Yosemite
14. Terns, by Mary Oliver
15. Banana peels for toxic remediation
16. Most recent census - 33m new ecological footprints added to country with highest per capita footprints
17. Sun about to go quiet? Does that mean little or no climate warming?
18. The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths
19. Cramming: sticking unauthorized charges onto your telephone bill
1. TO ALL SUPPORTERS OF GOLDEN GATE PARK:
1. Volunteers meeting:
Sunday, June 26th, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. , 1243 42nd Avenue between Lincoln and Irving
As requested, we are now having regular meetings for our volunteers. Learn what’s going on and what you can do to help. Enjoy great snacks! (Bring great snacks!)
2. Join us for July 10th Sunday Streets.
Sunday Streets: Sunday, July 10th, 11:00 – 4:00 p.m. Great Highway and Golden Gate Park. Join our volunteers if only for an hour or two, and then go off and enjoy the day. This is a fun way to talk to people and enlist their support, and a great way to get to know the City. Bring a friend! Let us know, so that we can give you our table location.
###############################################
2. The 2011 San Bruno Mountain North American Butterfly Association (NABA) count will be held on Sunday, June 26. We will meet at the park entrance just off Guadalupe Canyon Parkway at 9:00AM.
All levels of experience are welcome. Past years counts have been highlighted by abundant observations of the federally endangered callippe silverspot butterfly, annis swallowtails, pipevine swallowtails, mission blues, great coppers, and several others. There is a $3.00 fee that pays for data collection and analysis. This is a national volunteer based count that has been conducted annually throughout N. America for 35 years.
Please contact me if you are planning to come for the count, and be prepared for hiking up steep hills. We will be hiking on established trails. Bring sturdy hiking shoes, water, sunscreen, snacks, sunhat, etc. Previous knowledge of the butterfly species is not necessary, as each group will have a leader who is knowledgeable in the local butterfly species.
Contact Patrick Kobernus for more information:
650-269-3894
CRecology@gmail.com
##########################################
3. Save the date: July 7
Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time
Filmmakers & Speakers: Steve & Ann Dunsky
San Francisco County Fair Bldg
Those of us working in restoration view Aldo Leopold as our icon and godfather. His Sand County Almanac and other writings constitute our bible. Here are samples:
“We stand guard over works of art, but species representing the works of eons are stolen from under our noses.”
“I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?
“Having to squeeze the last drop of utility out of the land has the same desperate finality as having to chop up the furniture to keep warm.”
"The particular oak now aglow on my andirons grew on the bank of the old emigrant road where it climbs the sandhill. The stump, which I measured upon felling the tree, has a diameter of 30 inches. It shows 80 growth rings, hence the seedling from which it originated must have laid its first ring of wood in 1865, at the end of the Civil War…Only one acorn in a thousand ever grew large enough…the rest were drowned at birth in the prairie sea.
"It is a warming thought that this one wasn’t, and thus lived to garner eighty years of June sun. It is this sunlight that is now being released, through the intervention of my axe and saw, to warm my shack and my spirit through eighty gusts of blizzard. And with each gust a wisp of smoke from my chimney bears witness, to whomsoever it may concern, that the sun did not shine in vain.
"Now comes the job of making wood. The maul rings on steel wedges as the sections of trunk are up-ended one by one, only to fall apart in fragrant slabs to be corded by the roadside.
"There is an allegory for historians in the diverse functions of saw, wedge, and axe.
"The saw works only across the years, which it must deal with one by one, in sequence. From each year the raker teeth pull little chips of fact, which accumulate in little piles, called sawdust by woodsmen and archives by historians; both judge the character of what lies within by the character of the samples thus made visible without. It is not until the transect is completed that the tree falls, and the stump yields a collective view of a century. By its fall the tree attests the unity of the hodge-podge called history.
"…These things I ponder as the kettle sings, and the good oak burns to red coals on white ashes. Those ashes, come spring, I will return to the orchard at the foot of the sandhill. They will come back to me again, perhaps as red apples, or perhaps as a spirit of enterprise in some fat October squirrel, who, for reasons unknown to himself, is bent on planting acorns."
A Sand County Almanac (p 16)
###########################################################
4. LTE, Sierra, July-August 2011
It is clear that Rick Kaponowaiwaiola Barboza is not interested in "visitors" of the plant or people kind to his native homeland. But I am curious about the science behind it. For millions of years, intruders (coconuts, people) have washed up onshore there or arrived via bird droppings (plant seeds). That same process still exists worldwide. People just tend to speed up the process. So, really, what's his point? Should boats and planes be banned to limit such "cross-fertilization"?
At the end of the day, if the non-native species is more fit, it shall win. That's planetary evolution, and there's no stopping it. It's just a question of speed.
Rick Wernsing
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
(My response, submitted)
Editor:
When I became involved in ecological restoration in the late 1980s I immediately ran into the lazy "plants and animals have always moved around, get used to it" excuse for doing nothing. It is a response I frequently encounter, spoken by someone with little biological knowledge, unaware of human dependence on functioning ecosystems. Given nature's amazing resilience we unthinkingly expect her to be the gift that keeps on giving.
"It's just a question of speed" is the glib opinion regarding this evolving catastrophe. Yes, given time nature will heal the dislocations. In the five or six major extinction events which have punctuated life's journey of the past 560 million years it took tens of millions of years to repair the ecological damage. Are we prepared to wait that long? I usually ignore this shallow thinking; the reason I don't this time is because Sierra decided to print it.
Jake Sigg
San Francisco
“Humanity will in fact live on, and so will the ants. But humankind’s actions are impoverishing the earth; we are obliterating vast numbers of species and rendering the biosphere a far less beautiful and interesting place for human occupancy. The damage can be fully repaired by evolution only after millions of years, and only then if we let the ecosystems grow back. Meanwhile, let us not despise the lowly ants, but honor them. For a while longer at least, they will help to hold the world in balance to our liking, and they will serve as a reminder of what a wonderful place it was when first we arrived.”
Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson, Journey to the Ants
###################################################
5. STAT
150 - The estimated number of big brown bats it takes to eat 1.3 million pest insects in one year
4 to 8 grams: The amount of insects that one little brown bat can devour in a night
Scientific American June 2011
(JS: Perhaps you have been reading about the deep trouble all bats are in.)
###############################################
6. Join the Planning Department to review the community's vision for Cesar Chavez Street from Hampshire Street to Illinois Street and to hear an update on the SFMTA short-term bicycle project. The Cesar Chavez East Community Design Plan will re-imagine Cesar Chavez East as a vital connector of the Mission, Bayview, Potrero, Bernal and Dogpatch neighborhoods ˆ more safe, pleasant and convenient for people who live in, work in or travel through the area (and more responsive to ecological and cultural opportunities). The SFPUC‚s Urban Watershed Management Program has been working with closely the Planning Department on this project and views it as a great opportunity for the community and the City to collaborate on the implementation of the Better Streets Plan, including Low Impact Design, in the right-of-way.
MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2011 6:00-8:00 PM
Good Samaritan Family Resource Center
1294 Potrero Avenue -- in the Community Room
FOR MORE INFORMATION / PARA MÁS INFORMACIÓN CONTACTAR AL http://CCE.sfplanning.org or email: CCE@sfgov.org
###############################################
7.
Pedro Point Headland Habitat Restoration Day
Sunday, June 26th from 9.45 – 1.00pm.
RSVP Appreciated
I hope you can join us on Sunday as we dig a little deeper near the staging area for restoration work. Mike and I hiked the headlands a week or two ago and plotted a strategy for the summer.
First up, is work near the staging area...
• Seed Collecting starts this month and continues until fall!
• French Broom that we didn't see last month along the trail and back down the path.
• We found a pampas grass or a couple there too
• Iceplant. I couldn't believe my eyes when I found a large patch of Iceplant. Lets take it out!
• Tend the newly planted area along the road and check on the natives
• HELP fill ditches in the staging areas from a truck that did donuts last week.
• We were going to do more water bars but have been told to hold off.
• Trail widening if anyone is up to it. We didn't quite get to the end of the Arroyo Trail
Please do join us if you can and bring the kids, neighbors, friends, family!
Meet at the Pedro Point Firehouse on Dannman road at 9.45am. We will load up the cars with tools and carpool up to the headlands. Please wear long sleeve, long pants and sturdy shoes. Bring gloves if you have them. The Habitat Restoration work days are brought to you by the Pacifica Land Trust, funded by the CA Coastal Conservancy, and supported by the Pedro Point Community Association.
July 31st and August 28th will be the next work days. Please mark your calendar.
#####################################################################################
8. On Sunday, June 26 Fort Mason Center will inaugurate additional bike racks on campus with a Family Bike Day from 11 - 1:30. The YMCA will conduct a kids roadeo, REI will offer free bike adjustments, maps and adventure journals. Our Farmers' Market will be active as usual from 9:30 - 1:30.
###############################################
9. Ted Kipping pot luck/slide shows
4th Tuesday of the month at 7 pm (slide show at 8 pm) at the San Francisco County Fair Bldg, 9th Av & Lincoln Way in Golden Gate Park
Served by Muni bus lines #6, 43, 44, 66, 71, and the N-Judah Metro
*Please bring a dish and beverage to serve 8 people
June 28 Ted Kipping, "Isles of the Sea of Cortez"
____________________________________
“One merges in another, groups melt into ecological groups until the time when what we know as life meets and enters what we think of as non-life: barnacle and rock, rock and earth, earth and tree, tree and rain and air. And it is a strange thing that most of the feeling we call religious, most of the mystical outcrying which is one of the most prized and used and desired reactions of our species, is really the understanding and the attempt to say that man is related to the whole thing, related inextricably to all reality, known and unknowable...” John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez
###########################################################
10.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
~ Rumi ~
(The Essential Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks)
###########################################################
11. Published on Thursday, June 16, 2011 by Al-Jazeera-English
Fukushima: It's Much Worse Than You Think
Scientific experts believe Japan's nuclear disaster to be far worse than governments are revealing to the public.
"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera.
Unfortunately, the history of nuclear disasters appears to back Gundersen's assessment.
"With Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and now with Fukushima, you can pinpoint the exact day and time they started," he said, "But they never end."
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/201161664828302638.html
####################################################
12. On Jun 19, 2011, at 7:04 PM, Laarry Brown wrote:
BTW you probably know this, but the Scientific American sites you send are not available to non-subscribers.
Thank you for telling me this about SciAm--no, I didn't know it, but I sometimes wondered about it. I thought that if it were true then someone would have told me. They didn't--until you came along. Thanks.
EXTINCTION COUNTDOWN: Farming Rats and Bees Could Solve Bushmeat Crisis in Africa, Experts Say
The rising and often illegal trade in bushmeat threatens African biodiversity and could drive numerous species into extinction
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=25&ms=MzY3MjMxMTQS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTA0MDE0Nzk3S0&mt=1&rt=0
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13. Hello,
My name is Tom Reyes, and I work for the Resource Management and Science Department in Yosemite. I am in charge of running our volunteer programs, and I
wanted to see if we could put a plug in your newsletter about our drop-in volunteer days since I am sure some of your members will be visiting the park sometime this summer. Our drop-in programs are every Wednesday from 9am-noon, meeting in front of the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center. It is possible to set up a special work day (or days) with the possibility of free camping in the Valley.
TomReyes
VolunteerFieldLeader
YosemiteNationalPark
(818)554-6616
Thomas_Reyes@nps.gov
###########################################################
14.
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15. How Bizarre
Don't throw that banana peel in the compost just yet: It could help clean toxic stuff from river water, Brazilian researchers reported online February 16 in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. Minced banana peel, pulverized into micrometer-sized pieces, successfully pulled copper and lead out of water, the team found. A wash with nitric acid recovered more or less all of the metal adsorbed, and the same batch of peels could be used 11 times before recovery rates started falling. The researchers also tested the peel in raw river water, with similar results. Other natural extraction materials, such as peanut shells, have been tried before, but the banana peel's effectiveness was better, closer to the metal-sopping power of widely used silica gels, which can be toxic.
Science News 18.06.2011
#####################################################
16.
A Commentary on the Sorry State of 2010 Census, By Leon Kolankiewicz
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, from 1990 to 2000, an already bloated U.S. population grew by nearly 33 million (from 248 to 281 million), more than any decade since the Bureau began keeping track in 1790, when there were only 4 million Americans in total. Thus, in a mere 10 years, eight times as many people were added as there were altogether in our country some two centuries earlier, in a stark demonstration of the stunning power of what is known as compound, exponential, or geometric growth.
In so doing, a population of ravenous resource consumers equivalent to ten City of Los Angeles’ was unleashed upon an already ravaged American landscape and ecosystem. More resource consumers were added than even in the much-ballyhooed Baby Boom decade (1950-1960) – 33 vs. 28 million. Way more were added than in the Great Wave of Immigration decade (1900-1910) a century earlier, when a “mere” 16 million new Americans joined our ranks, and at the conclusion of which our population was “only” 91 million, less than a third of today’s 311 million.
From an environmental perspective, 33 million new pairs of ecological footprints were added to the country with one of the highest per capita ecological footprints on the planet, as well as the country with the single greatest aggregate ecological footprint on Earth. Added to a nation already living unsustainably, far beyond its ecological means (Figure 1); living in ecological deficit and accumulating a staggering ecological debt. That many more Americans meant that much more demographic pressure on our already beleaguered forests, wetlands, productive farmland, wildlife habitat, air and water quality, water resources, greenhouse gas emissions, threatened and endangered species, oil and coal consumption, and virtually every other pinched, stressed, over-stretched, and overloaded environmental resource in America.
You will have the option of receiving newsletter from blogspot by entering address in the "Follow by email" box in upper right corner, rather than by email.
###############################################
1. Supporters of Golden Gate Park - two dates, June 26 and July 10
2. San Bruno Mountain North American Butterfly Assn count Sunday 26 June
3. Save the date: July 7 for Aldo Leopold program
4. LTE, Sierra - and my submitted response on plants and animals moving around the world
5. Stats on bats - worrisome
6. Review community's vision for Cesar Chavez St/update on SFMTA bicycle project
7. Pedro Pt Headland habitat restoration day June 26
8. Family Bike Day at Ft Mason Center
9. "Isles of the Sea of Cortez" at Ted Kipping's potluck June 28
10. Troubles, sorrows? Invite them in; they're here to clean house
11. Al-Jazeera: Fukushima - it's much worse than you think
12. SciAm website posts - available to non-subscribers?
13. Drop-in volunteer resource management days in Yosemite
14. Terns, by Mary Oliver
15. Banana peels for toxic remediation
16. Most recent census - 33m new ecological footprints added to country with highest per capita footprints
17. Sun about to go quiet? Does that mean little or no climate warming?
18. The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths
19. Cramming: sticking unauthorized charges onto your telephone bill
1. TO ALL SUPPORTERS OF GOLDEN GATE PARK:
1. Volunteers meeting:
Sunday, June 26th, 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. , 1243 42nd Avenue between Lincoln and Irving
As requested, we are now having regular meetings for our volunteers. Learn what’s going on and what you can do to help. Enjoy great snacks! (Bring great snacks!)
2. Join us for July 10th Sunday Streets.
Sunday Streets: Sunday, July 10th, 11:00 – 4:00 p.m. Great Highway and Golden Gate Park. Join our volunteers if only for an hour or two, and then go off and enjoy the day. This is a fun way to talk to people and enlist their support, and a great way to get to know the City. Bring a friend! Let us know, so that we can give you our table location.
###############################################
2. The 2011 San Bruno Mountain North American Butterfly Association (NABA) count will be held on Sunday, June 26. We will meet at the park entrance just off Guadalupe Canyon Parkway at 9:00AM.
All levels of experience are welcome. Past years counts have been highlighted by abundant observations of the federally endangered callippe silverspot butterfly, annis swallowtails, pipevine swallowtails, mission blues, great coppers, and several others. There is a $3.00 fee that pays for data collection and analysis. This is a national volunteer based count that has been conducted annually throughout N. America for 35 years.
Please contact me if you are planning to come for the count, and be prepared for hiking up steep hills. We will be hiking on established trails. Bring sturdy hiking shoes, water, sunscreen, snacks, sunhat, etc. Previous knowledge of the butterfly species is not necessary, as each group will have a leader who is knowledgeable in the local butterfly species.
Contact Patrick Kobernus for more information:
650-269-3894
CRecology@gmail.com
##########################################
3. Save the date: July 7
Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time
Filmmakers & Speakers: Steve & Ann Dunsky
San Francisco County Fair Bldg
Those of us working in restoration view Aldo Leopold as our icon and godfather. His Sand County Almanac and other writings constitute our bible. Here are samples:
“We stand guard over works of art, but species representing the works of eons are stolen from under our noses.”
“I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?
“Having to squeeze the last drop of utility out of the land has the same desperate finality as having to chop up the furniture to keep warm.”
"The particular oak now aglow on my andirons grew on the bank of the old emigrant road where it climbs the sandhill. The stump, which I measured upon felling the tree, has a diameter of 30 inches. It shows 80 growth rings, hence the seedling from which it originated must have laid its first ring of wood in 1865, at the end of the Civil War…Only one acorn in a thousand ever grew large enough…the rest were drowned at birth in the prairie sea.
"It is a warming thought that this one wasn’t, and thus lived to garner eighty years of June sun. It is this sunlight that is now being released, through the intervention of my axe and saw, to warm my shack and my spirit through eighty gusts of blizzard. And with each gust a wisp of smoke from my chimney bears witness, to whomsoever it may concern, that the sun did not shine in vain.
"Now comes the job of making wood. The maul rings on steel wedges as the sections of trunk are up-ended one by one, only to fall apart in fragrant slabs to be corded by the roadside.
"There is an allegory for historians in the diverse functions of saw, wedge, and axe.
"The saw works only across the years, which it must deal with one by one, in sequence. From each year the raker teeth pull little chips of fact, which accumulate in little piles, called sawdust by woodsmen and archives by historians; both judge the character of what lies within by the character of the samples thus made visible without. It is not until the transect is completed that the tree falls, and the stump yields a collective view of a century. By its fall the tree attests the unity of the hodge-podge called history.
"…These things I ponder as the kettle sings, and the good oak burns to red coals on white ashes. Those ashes, come spring, I will return to the orchard at the foot of the sandhill. They will come back to me again, perhaps as red apples, or perhaps as a spirit of enterprise in some fat October squirrel, who, for reasons unknown to himself, is bent on planting acorns."
A Sand County Almanac (p 16)
###########################################################
4. LTE, Sierra, July-August 2011
It is clear that Rick Kaponowaiwaiola Barboza is not interested in "visitors" of the plant or people kind to his native homeland. But I am curious about the science behind it. For millions of years, intruders (coconuts, people) have washed up onshore there or arrived via bird droppings (plant seeds). That same process still exists worldwide. People just tend to speed up the process. So, really, what's his point? Should boats and planes be banned to limit such "cross-fertilization"?
At the end of the day, if the non-native species is more fit, it shall win. That's planetary evolution, and there's no stopping it. It's just a question of speed.
Rick Wernsing
Fort Lauderdale, Florida
(My response, submitted)
Editor:
When I became involved in ecological restoration in the late 1980s I immediately ran into the lazy "plants and animals have always moved around, get used to it" excuse for doing nothing. It is a response I frequently encounter, spoken by someone with little biological knowledge, unaware of human dependence on functioning ecosystems. Given nature's amazing resilience we unthinkingly expect her to be the gift that keeps on giving.
"It's just a question of speed" is the glib opinion regarding this evolving catastrophe. Yes, given time nature will heal the dislocations. In the five or six major extinction events which have punctuated life's journey of the past 560 million years it took tens of millions of years to repair the ecological damage. Are we prepared to wait that long? I usually ignore this shallow thinking; the reason I don't this time is because Sierra decided to print it.
Jake Sigg
San Francisco
“Humanity will in fact live on, and so will the ants. But humankind’s actions are impoverishing the earth; we are obliterating vast numbers of species and rendering the biosphere a far less beautiful and interesting place for human occupancy. The damage can be fully repaired by evolution only after millions of years, and only then if we let the ecosystems grow back. Meanwhile, let us not despise the lowly ants, but honor them. For a while longer at least, they will help to hold the world in balance to our liking, and they will serve as a reminder of what a wonderful place it was when first we arrived.”
Bert Holldobler and Edward O. Wilson, Journey to the Ants
###################################################
5. STAT
150 - The estimated number of big brown bats it takes to eat 1.3 million pest insects in one year
4 to 8 grams: The amount of insects that one little brown bat can devour in a night
Scientific American June 2011
(JS: Perhaps you have been reading about the deep trouble all bats are in.)
###############################################
6. Join the Planning Department to review the community's vision for Cesar Chavez Street from Hampshire Street to Illinois Street and to hear an update on the SFMTA short-term bicycle project. The Cesar Chavez East Community Design Plan will re-imagine Cesar Chavez East as a vital connector of the Mission, Bayview, Potrero, Bernal and Dogpatch neighborhoods ˆ more safe, pleasant and convenient for people who live in, work in or travel through the area (and more responsive to ecological and cultural opportunities). The SFPUC‚s Urban Watershed Management Program has been working with closely the Planning Department on this project and views it as a great opportunity for the community and the City to collaborate on the implementation of the Better Streets Plan, including Low Impact Design, in the right-of-way.
MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2011 6:00-8:00 PM
Good Samaritan Family Resource Center
1294 Potrero Avenue -- in the Community Room
FOR MORE INFORMATION / PARA MÁS INFORMACIÓN CONTACTAR AL http://CCE.sfplanning.org or email: CCE@sfgov.org
###############################################
7.
Pedro Point Headland Habitat Restoration Day
Sunday, June 26th from 9.45 – 1.00pm.
RSVP Appreciated
I hope you can join us on Sunday as we dig a little deeper near the staging area for restoration work. Mike and I hiked the headlands a week or two ago and plotted a strategy for the summer.
First up, is work near the staging area...
• Seed Collecting starts this month and continues until fall!
• French Broom that we didn't see last month along the trail and back down the path.
• We found a pampas grass or a couple there too
• Iceplant. I couldn't believe my eyes when I found a large patch of Iceplant. Lets take it out!
• Tend the newly planted area along the road and check on the natives
• HELP fill ditches in the staging areas from a truck that did donuts last week.
• We were going to do more water bars but have been told to hold off.
• Trail widening if anyone is up to it. We didn't quite get to the end of the Arroyo Trail
Please do join us if you can and bring the kids, neighbors, friends, family!
Meet at the Pedro Point Firehouse on Dannman road at 9.45am. We will load up the cars with tools and carpool up to the headlands. Please wear long sleeve, long pants and sturdy shoes. Bring gloves if you have them. The Habitat Restoration work days are brought to you by the Pacifica Land Trust, funded by the CA Coastal Conservancy, and supported by the Pedro Point Community Association.
July 31st and August 28th will be the next work days. Please mark your calendar.
#####################################################################################
8. On Sunday, June 26 Fort Mason Center will inaugurate additional bike racks on campus with a Family Bike Day from 11 - 1:30. The YMCA will conduct a kids roadeo, REI will offer free bike adjustments, maps and adventure journals. Our Farmers' Market will be active as usual from 9:30 - 1:30.
###############################################
9. Ted Kipping pot luck/slide shows
4th Tuesday of the month at 7 pm (slide show at 8 pm) at the San Francisco County Fair Bldg, 9th Av & Lincoln Way in Golden Gate Park
Served by Muni bus lines #6, 43, 44, 66, 71, and the N-Judah Metro
*Please bring a dish and beverage to serve 8 people
June 28 Ted Kipping, "Isles of the Sea of Cortez"
____________________________________
“One merges in another, groups melt into ecological groups until the time when what we know as life meets and enters what we think of as non-life: barnacle and rock, rock and earth, earth and tree, tree and rain and air. And it is a strange thing that most of the feeling we call religious, most of the mystical outcrying which is one of the most prized and used and desired reactions of our species, is really the understanding and the attempt to say that man is related to the whole thing, related inextricably to all reality, known and unknowable...” John Steinbeck, The Log from the Sea of Cortez
###########################################################
10.
The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
~ Rumi ~
(The Essential Rumi, versions by Coleman Barks)
###########################################################
11. Published on Thursday, June 16, 2011 by Al-Jazeera-English
Fukushima: It's Much Worse Than You Think
Scientific experts believe Japan's nuclear disaster to be far worse than governments are revealing to the public.
"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind," Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera.
Unfortunately, the history of nuclear disasters appears to back Gundersen's assessment.
"With Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and now with Fukushima, you can pinpoint the exact day and time they started," he said, "But they never end."
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/201161664828302638.html
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12. On Jun 19, 2011, at 7:04 PM, Laarry Brown wrote:
BTW you probably know this, but the Scientific American sites you send are not available to non-subscribers.
Thank you for telling me this about SciAm--no, I didn't know it, but I sometimes wondered about it. I thought that if it were true then someone would have told me. They didn't--until you came along. Thanks.
EXTINCTION COUNTDOWN: Farming Rats and Bees Could Solve Bushmeat Crisis in Africa, Experts Say
The rising and often illegal trade in bushmeat threatens African biodiversity and could drive numerous species into extinction
http://links.email.scientificamerican.com/ctt?kn=25&ms=MzY3MjMxMTQS1&r=NTM5NzIzNTA1NgS2&b=2&j=MTA0MDE0Nzk3S0&mt=1&rt=0
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13. Hello,
My name is Tom Reyes, and I work for the Resource Management and Science Department in Yosemite. I am in charge of running our volunteer programs, and I
wanted to see if we could put a plug in your newsletter about our drop-in volunteer days since I am sure some of your members will be visiting the park sometime this summer. Our drop-in programs are every Wednesday from 9am-noon, meeting in front of the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center. It is possible to set up a special work day (or days) with the possibility of free camping in the Valley.
TomReyes
VolunteerFieldLeader
YosemiteNationalPark
(818)554-6616
Thomas_Reyes@nps.gov
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14.
Terns
Don't think just now of the trudging forward of thought,
but of the wing-drive of unquestioning affirmation.
It's summer, you never saw such a blue sky,
and here they are, those white birds with quick wings,
sweeping over the waves,
chattering and plunging,
their thin beaks snapping, their hard eyes
happy as little nails.
The years to come -- this is a promise --
will grant you ample time
to try the difficult steps in the empire of thought
where you seek for the shining proofs you think you must have.
But nothing you ever understand will be sweeter, or more binding,
than this deep affinity between your eyes and the world.
The flock thickens
over the roiling, salt brightness. Listen,
maybe such devotion, in which one holds the world
in the clasp of attention, isn't the perfect prayer,
but it must be close, for the sorrow, whose name is doubt,
is thus subdued, and not through the weaponry of reason,
but of pure submission. Tell me, what else
could beauty be for? And now the tide
is at its very crown,
the white birds sprinkle down,
gathering up the loose silver, rising
as if weightless. It isn't instruction, or a parable.
It isn't for any vanity or ambition
except for the one allowed, to stay alive.
It's only a nimble frolic
over the waves. And you find, for hours,
you cannot even remember the questions
that weigh so in your mind.
~ Mary Oliver ~
(New and Selected Poems, Volume Two)
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15. How Bizarre
Don't throw that banana peel in the compost just yet: It could help clean toxic stuff from river water, Brazilian researchers reported online February 16 in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. Minced banana peel, pulverized into micrometer-sized pieces, successfully pulled copper and lead out of water, the team found. A wash with nitric acid recovered more or less all of the metal adsorbed, and the same batch of peels could be used 11 times before recovery rates started falling. The researchers also tested the peel in raw river water, with similar results. Other natural extraction materials, such as peanut shells, have been tried before, but the banana peel's effectiveness was better, closer to the metal-sopping power of widely used silica gels, which can be toxic.
Science News 18.06.2011
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16.
A Commentary on the Sorry State of 2010 Census, By Leon Kolankiewicz
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, from 1990 to 2000, an already bloated U.S. population grew by nearly 33 million (from 248 to 281 million), more than any decade since the Bureau began keeping track in 1790, when there were only 4 million Americans in total. Thus, in a mere 10 years, eight times as many people were added as there were altogether in our country some two centuries earlier, in a stark demonstration of the stunning power of what is known as compound, exponential, or geometric growth.
In so doing, a population of ravenous resource consumers equivalent to ten City of Los Angeles’ was unleashed upon an already ravaged American landscape and ecosystem. More resource consumers were added than even in the much-ballyhooed Baby Boom decade (1950-1960) – 33 vs. 28 million. Way more were added than in the Great Wave of Immigration decade (1900-1910) a century earlier, when a “mere” 16 million new Americans joined our ranks, and at the conclusion of which our population was “only” 91 million, less than a third of today’s 311 million.
From an environmental perspective, 33 million new pairs of ecological footprints were added to the country with one of the highest per capita ecological footprints on the planet, as well as the country with the single greatest aggregate ecological footprint on Earth. Added to a nation already living unsustainably, far beyond its ecological means (Figure 1); living in ecological deficit and accumulating a staggering ecological debt. That many more Americans meant that much more demographic pressure on our already beleaguered forests, wetlands, productive farmland, wildlife habitat, air and water quality, water resources, greenhouse gas emissions, threatened and endangered species, oil and coal consumption, and virtually every other pinched, stressed, over-stretched, and overloaded environmental resource in America.
Figure 1. U.S. Ecological Footprint vs. Biocapacity, 1961 to 2006
Sources: Global Footprint Network; Progressives for Immigration Reform
Now let us look at the decade just completed (2000-2010), the subject of the 2010 Decadal Census, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and the topic of a great many recently released and forthcoming reports and commentaries. As a result in part of the “Great Recession” with which we still contend, the aggregate growth in our population during the decade just passed dipped somewhat from 33 to 27 million. But these 27 million added to an already overpopulated America still represent the third-largest increase of any decade in our history! This past decade’s growth is surpassed only by the record 1990-2000 decade (33 million) and the Baby Boom 1950-1960 decade (28 million) (Figure 2).
Figure 2. U.S. population growth increment by decade, 1900-2010 (in millions) (omitted)
In the bar graph of Figure 2, the trend is quite evident: from 1900 onward, up to the present day, even as our population size has gotten ever larger, the decadal increments, far from decreasing – which would be the case in a population on its way to stabilization – have on average gotten larger as well. The bars on the right (more recent) side are clearly taller, on average, than the bars on the left side. If we divide this 110-year period into two parts – 1900 to 1950, and 1950 to 2010, in the first part the average (mean) decadal increase in U.S. population was 15 million. In the second part (1950-2010), the average increase per decade was 26 million. Not only has our cumulative population size been growing ever larger, but viewed over the long term, the pace of growth is accelerating!
With, of course, dire consequences for environmental sustainability and our quality of life. Yet to judge from the consistent narrative of commentary in the mainstream media on the 2010 Census, one would have no clue that environmentally damaging, unsustainable growth continues its ruinous reign in America. Amazingly, if there was any hint of dissatisfaction with the numbers revealed by the Census, it was that they were too low, because the decadal growth rate had declined from 13% in the 1990s to 10% in the 2000s (Figure 3). This welcome shift – a slowdown, albeit a modest one – in the torrid growth rate of the nineties was met with cries of dismay on the nation’s business pages. It prompted the worried headline of an article at CNN.com to ask: “Is the U.S. entering a population slump?” The same article stressed that, “U.S. population growth last decade was slowest since the Great Depression.”
Figure 3. U.S. population growth in percentage by decade, 1900-2010 (omitted)
From an environmental impact perspective, what counts of course is not percentage change, but absolute numbers. It is absolute numbers that represent real change on the ground. What do you think was worse for the environment? 1) When the U.S. population grew by 21% from 1900 to 1910 and added 16 million consumers at a per capita consumption level perhaps one-fifth of today’s, or 2) When the U.S. population grew by “only” 10% from 2000 to 2010 and added 27 million consumers? It should be obvious.
The CNN.com article pretty much epitomizes the depressing state of commentary on U.S. population issues today. Indeed, judging from the coverage I have seen in recent months touching on different aspects of the 2010 Census results, my main takeaway is that the reactions were three-fold:
1. “OMG!” – the rate of growth is declining. We’re in a death spiral! This fretting from the nation’s business establishment and politicians from states and regions that had negative, no, or slow growth, fearful of the implications of being left behind in the never-ending, ruthless race for political and economic power, locally, nationally, and globally. If you fall behind on the treadmill as it moves ever faster, you’re on your way to falling off entirely.
2. Applauding the nation’s ever more diverse ethnic/racial composition. In particular, Hispanic commenters, politicians, and business leaders by and large reveled in the fact that more than half of the 2000-2010 growth was from Hispanics (from a combination of immigration and higher fertility rates), assuring them greater political, economic and cultural clout in the country. Other commenters thought this was the most important story in the 2010 Census results, not the implications of continuing aggregate population increase with no end in sight.
3. And from the Environmental Establishment, deafening silence, or virtually no reaction at all, implying that for these clueless people, ever-increasing numbers of Americans (each one a resource consumer and waste generator) had little bearing on their purported missions to save this, that, or the other. Rank-and-file environmentalists are a little better than their leaders, but not by much. If so, they would be more actively supportive of the population stabilization cause by backing those few organizations that do forcefully advocate it.
In my professional labors as an environmental planner and consultant over the past two decades and more, I have written and managed massive Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) examining the potential environmental effects of projects ranging from large highways, flood control projects, water supply projects, power lines, oil and gas drilling, and coal-fired electrical generation stations. In each and every case, the driving force behind what environmental planners call the “purpose and need” for the project was population growth. Pure and simple. Undeniable. And utterly ignored by the powerful Environmental Establishment. It’s much more convenient to bash greedy, heartless, ruthless multinational corporations, whose often selfish and short-sighted behavior plays right into the hands of their critics, after all.
The agencies and the project proponents themselves – water and electrical utilities, flood control districts, highway builders, the Army Corps of Engineers, etc. – made no effort to disguise what was causing the increased need for electricity, or water, or transmission capacity, or road capacity. Population growth. Documented and quantified right in chapter one of each EIS. In no case was it ever increases in per capita consumption driving the need for the “proposed action.” It wasn’t McMansions, SUV’s, pick ‘em up trucks, or their ilk, every environmentalist’s favorite whipping boys, which bore the blame.
By and large, due to a greater emphasis on conservation and efficiency, our per capita energy, electricity, water and other resource consumption rates have either stabilized or decreased in recent decades, which is good. But not enough to stop the need for new environmentally destructive projects to meet the new demands for energy, water, resources, and land imposed by the new millions. And in their obstinate refusal to recognize this, the American Environmental Establishment has gone AWOL over the last couple of decades. In the short-term, it is more politically expedient to engage in the pretense that their cause is not a lost cause without population stabilization. Over the long term however, they have sold out the very environment they claim to defend.
Leon Kolankiewicz, a CAPS senior writing fellow (www.CAPSweb.org), is a career wildlife biologist and environmental planner with nearly three decades of experience as an environmental professional.
#####################################################################################
17. Solar physics
Sun down
Several lines of evidence suggest that the sun is about to go quiet
Jun 16th 2011 | from The Economist print edition
Sources: Global Footprint Network; Progressives for Immigration Reform
Now let us look at the decade just completed (2000-2010), the subject of the 2010 Decadal Census, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and the topic of a great many recently released and forthcoming reports and commentaries. As a result in part of the “Great Recession” with which we still contend, the aggregate growth in our population during the decade just passed dipped somewhat from 33 to 27 million. But these 27 million added to an already overpopulated America still represent the third-largest increase of any decade in our history! This past decade’s growth is surpassed only by the record 1990-2000 decade (33 million) and the Baby Boom 1950-1960 decade (28 million) (Figure 2).
Figure 2. U.S. population growth increment by decade, 1900-2010 (in millions) (omitted)
In the bar graph of Figure 2, the trend is quite evident: from 1900 onward, up to the present day, even as our population size has gotten ever larger, the decadal increments, far from decreasing – which would be the case in a population on its way to stabilization – have on average gotten larger as well. The bars on the right (more recent) side are clearly taller, on average, than the bars on the left side. If we divide this 110-year period into two parts – 1900 to 1950, and 1950 to 2010, in the first part the average (mean) decadal increase in U.S. population was 15 million. In the second part (1950-2010), the average increase per decade was 26 million. Not only has our cumulative population size been growing ever larger, but viewed over the long term, the pace of growth is accelerating!
With, of course, dire consequences for environmental sustainability and our quality of life. Yet to judge from the consistent narrative of commentary in the mainstream media on the 2010 Census, one would have no clue that environmentally damaging, unsustainable growth continues its ruinous reign in America. Amazingly, if there was any hint of dissatisfaction with the numbers revealed by the Census, it was that they were too low, because the decadal growth rate had declined from 13% in the 1990s to 10% in the 2000s (Figure 3). This welcome shift – a slowdown, albeit a modest one – in the torrid growth rate of the nineties was met with cries of dismay on the nation’s business pages. It prompted the worried headline of an article at CNN.com to ask: “Is the U.S. entering a population slump?” The same article stressed that, “U.S. population growth last decade was slowest since the Great Depression.”
Figure 3. U.S. population growth in percentage by decade, 1900-2010 (omitted)
From an environmental impact perspective, what counts of course is not percentage change, but absolute numbers. It is absolute numbers that represent real change on the ground. What do you think was worse for the environment? 1) When the U.S. population grew by 21% from 1900 to 1910 and added 16 million consumers at a per capita consumption level perhaps one-fifth of today’s, or 2) When the U.S. population grew by “only” 10% from 2000 to 2010 and added 27 million consumers? It should be obvious.
The CNN.com article pretty much epitomizes the depressing state of commentary on U.S. population issues today. Indeed, judging from the coverage I have seen in recent months touching on different aspects of the 2010 Census results, my main takeaway is that the reactions were three-fold:
1. “OMG!” – the rate of growth is declining. We’re in a death spiral! This fretting from the nation’s business establishment and politicians from states and regions that had negative, no, or slow growth, fearful of the implications of being left behind in the never-ending, ruthless race for political and economic power, locally, nationally, and globally. If you fall behind on the treadmill as it moves ever faster, you’re on your way to falling off entirely.
2. Applauding the nation’s ever more diverse ethnic/racial composition. In particular, Hispanic commenters, politicians, and business leaders by and large reveled in the fact that more than half of the 2000-2010 growth was from Hispanics (from a combination of immigration and higher fertility rates), assuring them greater political, economic and cultural clout in the country. Other commenters thought this was the most important story in the 2010 Census results, not the implications of continuing aggregate population increase with no end in sight.
3. And from the Environmental Establishment, deafening silence, or virtually no reaction at all, implying that for these clueless people, ever-increasing numbers of Americans (each one a resource consumer and waste generator) had little bearing on their purported missions to save this, that, or the other. Rank-and-file environmentalists are a little better than their leaders, but not by much. If so, they would be more actively supportive of the population stabilization cause by backing those few organizations that do forcefully advocate it.
In my professional labors as an environmental planner and consultant over the past two decades and more, I have written and managed massive Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) examining the potential environmental effects of projects ranging from large highways, flood control projects, water supply projects, power lines, oil and gas drilling, and coal-fired electrical generation stations. In each and every case, the driving force behind what environmental planners call the “purpose and need” for the project was population growth. Pure and simple. Undeniable. And utterly ignored by the powerful Environmental Establishment. It’s much more convenient to bash greedy, heartless, ruthless multinational corporations, whose often selfish and short-sighted behavior plays right into the hands of their critics, after all.
The agencies and the project proponents themselves – water and electrical utilities, flood control districts, highway builders, the Army Corps of Engineers, etc. – made no effort to disguise what was causing the increased need for electricity, or water, or transmission capacity, or road capacity. Population growth. Documented and quantified right in chapter one of each EIS. In no case was it ever increases in per capita consumption driving the need for the “proposed action.” It wasn’t McMansions, SUV’s, pick ‘em up trucks, or their ilk, every environmentalist’s favorite whipping boys, which bore the blame.
By and large, due to a greater emphasis on conservation and efficiency, our per capita energy, electricity, water and other resource consumption rates have either stabilized or decreased in recent decades, which is good. But not enough to stop the need for new environmentally destructive projects to meet the new demands for energy, water, resources, and land imposed by the new millions. And in their obstinate refusal to recognize this, the American Environmental Establishment has gone AWOL over the last couple of decades. In the short-term, it is more politically expedient to engage in the pretense that their cause is not a lost cause without population stabilization. Over the long term however, they have sold out the very environment they claim to defend.
Leon Kolankiewicz, a CAPS senior writing fellow (www.CAPSweb.org), is a career wildlife biologist and environmental planner with nearly three decades of experience as an environmental professional.
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17. Solar physics
Sun down
Several lines of evidence suggest that the sun is about to go quiet
Jun 16th 2011 | from The Economist print edition
Spots of bother?
DURING the four centuries that it has been studied in detail, the sun has usually behaved in a regular manner. The number of spots on its surface has waxed and waned in cycles that last, on average, 11 years. Such cycles begin with spots appearing in mid-solar latitudes and end with them near the equator. And the more spots there are, the more solar storms there are around.
Sometimes, though, the sun sulks and this solar cycle stops. That has happened twice since records began: during the so-called Maunder minimum of 1645 to 1715 and the Dalton minimum of 1790 to 1830. These coincided with periods when global temperatures were lower than average, though why is a matter of debate.
An absence of sunspots also means an absence of solar flares and their more violent siblings, coronal mass ejections. Such outbursts disrupt radio and satellite communications, electricity grids and a variety of electronic equipment, so the pattern of solar activity is of more than academic interest. A new solar minimum, then, would test theories about how the climate works and also make communications more reliable. And many solar physicists think such a new minimum is on the cards. A group of them, who all work for America’s National Solar Observatory (NSO), have just had a meeting in New Mexico, under the aegis of the American Astronomical Society, to announce their latest results.
Frank Hill and his team were the discoverers, 15 years ago, of an east-west jet stream in the sun. They also worked out that the latitude of this wind is related to the sunspot cycle. At the beginning of a cycle the jet stream is found, like sunspots, in mid-latitudes. As the cycle progresses, it follows the spots towards the equator.
Intriguingly, however, Dr Hill’s studies indicate that the jet stream of a new cycle starts to form years before the sunspot pattern. This time, that has not happened. History suggests a new cycle should begin in 2019. If the sun were behaving itself, Dr Hill’s team would have seen signs of a new jet stream in 2008 or 2009. They did not. Nor are there indications of one even now. If a change in the jet stream really is a leading indicator of solar activity, then no new cycle is on the horizon.
The second study which suggests something odd is happening looked at the strengths of sunspots. Matthew Penn and William Livingston have analysed 13 years of data which indicate that, independently of the number of spots around, there has been a decrease in their strength.
Sunspots are caused by irruptions into its surface of the sun’s deeper magnetism. These create local drops in temperature, which make the surface gas darker. Over the period which Dr Penn and Dr Livingston analysed, the average magnetic strength of the irruptions has declined. Below a certain threshold, they will not be strong enough to overcome the convective mixing of the gas at the surface, and spots will disappear altogether. If the present trend continues, that will happen in 2021.
The third measure of the sun’s decline is in its outer atmosphere, the corona. At each solar maximum, the corona sloughs off the magnetic fingerprint of the previous cycle by pushing it to the poles. According to Richard Altrock, the leader of another NSO team at the meeting, that does not appear to be happening in the present cycle. It looks, then, as if a new, extended solar minimum is about to begin.
That is good news for operators of communications satellites. And it is interesting news for those who worry about global warming. If the Maunder and Dalton minima actually did affect the climate, then a new one might counteract the effects of the extra greenhouse gases people are now pumping into the atmosphere—at least, until the solar cycle returns. Whether the breathing space thus granted would be used wisely or squandered is another matter. Do not expect that debate to be as placid as the spotless sun.
(Uh, do you find that thought disquieting? Think about it: The science may be clear that the cooling is accounted for by one of the Sun's sporadic minima, and human-generated warming is indeed going on. Will that matter to deniers?
Alternatively, the "Lord will provide" crowd will see it as proof that Providence looks after its chosen creation. Further proof of my contention that God is a Republican. JS)
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18. The power of faith
Irrational belief
A medley of aliens and conspiracy theories
Jun 16th 2011 | from The Economist print edition
The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies—How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths. By Michael Shermer
MICHAEL SHERMER is a psychologist, cyclist, one-time fundamentalist Christian, founder of Skeptic magazine and, currently, the author of a monthly column with the same name published in Scientific American. He has built a professional career out of casting a rationalist’s eye over some of the wackiest beliefs that humanity has to offer.
But his latest book is more than just a display case full of specimens collected by a man fascinated by the paranormal. Mr Shermer is interested in how such beliefs come to be held, and why they can persist even in the face of what, to others, can seem to be the overwhelming evidence that contradicts them.
The first part of the book is a mixture of psychology and trendy neuroscience research that presents the evidence for Mr Shermer’s central claim: that, instead of shaping belief around painstakingly gathered, soberly judged evidence, people most often decide upon their beliefs first, and then use an impressive range of cognitive tricks to bend whatever evidence they do discover into support for those pre-decided acts of faith.
In the second part of “The Believing Brain” Mr Shermer applies those observations to the almost infinite variety of weird and wonderful beliefs that people hold, from alien abductions to government conspiracies to bring down the World Trade Centre—and, inevitably, to religion (a chapter on politics, by contrast, feels misplaced and forced). He is an able skewerer of sloppy thinking. The section on conspiracy theories, for instance, memorably exposes the bizarre leaps of logic that adherents often make: “If I cannot explain every single minutia [about the collapse of the twin towers]…that lack of knowledge equates to direct proof that 9/11 was orchestrated by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the CIA.”
A common risk with this kind of book is that the author comes across as overly smug and superior; just look at how the duke of debunkers, Richard Dawkins, is sometimes perceived, even by his fans. Mr Shermer is aware of this risk, and is at pains to reassure readers that his conclusions apply to everyone, even himself. In a chapter on alien abductions, he recounts an abduction story of his own. Exhausted after cycling 1,259 miles in 83 hours as part of an endurance challenge called the Race Across America, he becomes convinced that the motorhome carrying his support team is actually an alien spacecraft, and that his team’s pleas for him to come inside and get some rest are merely a cunning pretext to get him to co-operate with a spot of alien probing. Surprised when the interior of the mothership turns out to closely resemble a General Motors motorhome, Mr Shermer consents to lying down. On waking a couple of hours later, he is able to joke about the experience with his team-mates.
That experience gives one useful definition of a sceptic, as Mr Shermer understands the term: one who is aware of the fallibility of intuitions, and willing to take steps to minimise them. It remains, sadly, an uncommon combination.
(I am a regular reader of Shermer's Skeptic column in Scientific American and value his clear thinking and incisive style. I wrote a complaint to SciAm once about the magazine itself, and he answered. This started a little email dialogue. JS)
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19. From NPR'S Marketplace, June 21
The Federal Communications Commission looks into hidden charges on phone bills.
Kai Ryssdal: For most of us the word cramming brings with it memories of late nights in the library getting ready for exams. The Federal Communications Commission, however, has no such memories and says cramming has another meaning entirely. It says consumers ought read their phone bills more carefully.
Sally Herships: Jeff Kagan is a technology analyst. He says 20 years ago phone bills were simple.
Jeff Kagan: You got a bill,it said what you were charged for, and that was it.
Then, says Kagan, the FCC decided to make things clearer for consumers -- by having phone companies list every little charge on the bill. And we all know what that got us. A mile long phone bill that's impossible to decode.
Kagan: We are all paying for charges that we don't have to.
Millions of us, anyway. The practice is known as cramming, or sticking unauthorized charges into your phone bill -- usually your land line bill. The FCC estimates that up to 20 million households have been stuck with cramming charges that can range from $1.99 to $19.99 a month.
But Kagan says its not only phone companies who are to blame.
Kagan: Oh no, no. It's telephone companies and it's many other companies who use the telephone companies as their billing partners.
John Breyault: Anything from long distance services, voicemail, directory listings, even things like diet plans or yoga classes.
John Breyault is with the National Consumers league. He says consumers need to scour their bills.
Breyault: If you don't recognize the name of the company that's listed on the bill, if you don't know what the services were provided by the listed companies.
The FCC has proposed more than a $11 million in fines against several telephone companies accused of cramming. And is considering new rules to make bills clearer and to fight mystery fees.
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